


The Mysterious Disappearance of Kayleigh Day

by jemejem



Series: Buzzfeed Unsolved Network [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andrew Minyard as Shane Madej, M/M, Neil Josten as Ryan Bergara, True Crime, buzzfeed unsolved au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 06:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20830562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemejem/pseuds/jemejem
Summary: "Welcome back to another episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved. I'm Neil Josten, and this is Andrew Minyard. Do you want to tell them what case we're looking at today?""It's in the title.""You're no help."





	The Mysterious Disappearance of Kayleigh Day

“Let’s start.” Neil said, straightening the file on his desk. The typical _Unsolved_ logo was plastered across its front, the file awfully thin: It was a reminder that they weren’t detectives, nor investigators: They ran an entertainment show. 

Didn’t stop Neil from enjoying himself, though. 

“Welcome back to a new episode of Buzzfeed Unsolved, everyone.” He looked to the camera and gave it his best arched brow. “Considering your crazy positive response to the show thus far, we decided: Let’s make it more than just me, a voiceover, and a few blurred images, right? So, here we are.” He opened his hands and gestured to the desk and the shelves that surrounded him. It was a good set. “You must all be wondering who’s sitting beside me. This is Andrew Minyard, my cohost. Do you want to tell them what case we're looking at today?"

"It's in the title."

"You're no help."

The man in question was leaning dangerously far back in his chair. He saluted the camera lazily, letting his head roll around to glare at Neil. 

Neil wasn’t going to mention that this was a completely different man to Matt, who’d partnered with him for the prior videos and also contributed to the voice-overs. He was sure no one would notice. 

“We’re discussing a pretty crazy case today,” Neil arched an eyebrow at Andrew, who let his eyes slide back to the camera in front of them. “The disappearance of Kayleigh Day. A mutual favourite of ours, isn’t it?”

“Won’t be if you continue faffing.” Andrew drawled. “Let’s get into it, shall we?”

“Spare them your dramatics, Minyard.” Neil allowed, opening his file. Andrew sat up a little to object, but Neil was well ready to cut over him with the story. 

*

Kayleigh Day was the daughter of two prominent socialites: A famous, retired sportsman, and a woman heralded as a style icon of the mid-20th-century. She’d grown up accustomed to wealth and the high life and many described her as sheltered and naive. 

A good friend went as far as saying that Kayleigh was “…hopelessly idealistic, to the point that it was sickening.” 

As a young woman, this optimism and ambition was said to fuel her in her endeavours as she travelled back and forth between Ireland, her home country, and Japan, where her mother often resided after her parents split up in her late teens. She attended university in both countries, sporadic in her studying choices and often changing her mind or finding something new to be passionate about. 

Kayleigh was said to be outwardly happy and encouraging, but an ex-partner, who will be discussed later, claimed that she was confused and distracting herself from her misfortunes, unable to ‘find herself’.

*

[Cut from final video]

“Definitely a lesbian.” Andrew muttered. 

Neil flicked a pencil at him. “Shut up.”

“Am I wrong?” He challenged, arching an eyebrow. 

Neil huffed, recalling one of his close friends, Allison Reynolds. It all sounded incredibly familiar. “No. You’re not.” 

*

Picture this: It’s 1993, and Kayleigh is boarding an aeroplane to visit the United States of America for the first time in her life. As both her parents were more concerned with business in Europe and East Asia, she’d never bothered stepping foot within North American borders. 

Kayleigh was twenty-six at the time and had avoided public appearances for just over a year due to an undisclosed illness. After her disappearance, the press would discover a four-month old left in the care of his estranged father, named Kevin Day. The child was going to be passed into the care of his god-father when David Wymack was arrested for the suspected murder of Kayleigh Day, but was promptly returned to his father when his name was cleared. 

Kayleigh Day arrived in New York City on the 21st of July, 1993. She booked into her hotel in central Manhattan at 10:03 in the morning: An hour later, she was sighted leaving the hotel with a small purse, wearing sunglasses and a large mauve hat—

*

“Mauve?” Andrew mocked. 

“You’re impossible.” Neil ground out. 

“Next you’ll tell me there was a periwinkle ribbon around the hat’s rim, and the overalls she wore had seven pockets.”

“Seven pockets—? For goodness’ sake, just shut it.”

*

—A large mauve hat. She was again spotted at a flower shop on 16th Avenue, where she bought a bouquet of white daisies. She then took a cab out to Staten Island—

*

“Gross.” Andrew muttered.

  
*

—and asked to be let out close to Miller Field in Midland Beach. It’s here that the details begin to cloud, so it’ll be laid out chronologically. 

At approximately 12:37, Kayleigh ran after the cab who had dropped her off. The man pulled over and checked the backseat to see if the woman had forgotten anything, but saw nothing. As he was looking, she supposedly reopened the door, leaned in to open his glovebox and took a packet of spearmint gum that the cabbie had left there. In its place she left a small box. 

According to the cab driver, Kayleigh then told him to destroy the box, quote: 

“If anyone gets their hands on that, you’re dead. I’m dead.”

Kayleigh then apparently slammed the door of the cab closed and ran off. The cab driver, assuming the box could be an explosive of sorts, called the police, mildly distressed. Here’s a clip from the 911 call:

> “911, what’s your emergency?”
> 
> “Hi, uh—I’m a cab driver. On staten island, northern side of Miller Field. I think my passenger just left me with a box that could be a bomb, but I’m not sure.”
> 
> “Alright, sir, please just step outside of the vehicle…”
> 
> “No, I don’t think that’s the real problem. She seemed very anxious and has run off: She told me to destroy the box. I think she’s going to be hurt. She told me her name is Kayleigh: She sounded British. I think. I’m not sure.”

*

“I bet that has the Irishwoman rolling in her grave.” Andrew muttered. 

“She might not be dead. She’s technically missing.” Neil pointed out. 

Andrew served him a flat look. “Yeah, and I’m absolutely a fucking optimist.” 

Neil snorted. 

*

The police arrived to the scene. The cab driver was waiting outside his car. The scene was taped up as the police waited for the bomb squad’s arrival. As he was describing Kayleigh’s appearance, a silver Maserati with tinted windows drove up to the scene. A man got out of the backseat, dressed in a black suit with black sunglasses and gloves to match. He strode past the police—  


*

“Who, mind you, are relatively incompetent throughout the entirety of this case.” Neil pointed out. 

“Aren’t they always?”

“Fair.”

*

And opened the cab door, extracting the box before the police could apprehend the man for trespassing onto a crime scene. He avoided capture and ran back to the car, which skidded off. The plate registration, 1-1-M-0-1, was a fake plate according to detectives that ran the numbers. There was no trace of the numberplate other than a nulled speeding offence from 1990, when the registration belonged to a Kengo Moriyama. 

Here’s a picture of the box, taken before the suited man retrieved the box.

If it wasn’t strange enough, here’s where things get truly odd. 

Kayleigh had run away from the cab driver at about 12:40. At 1:47, the cab driver is brought back to the police station as an ABP for the Maserati with the age registration is sent to all neighbouring precincts. The car is nowhere to be found, and neither are Kayleigh or the suited man seen at the police scene. 

At 2:07, 911 receives a phone call which is later confirmed as Kayleigh through vocal analysis. All she says is ‘Tell Kevin I’m sorry,’ before hanging up. 

That is the last anyone has seen or heard from Kayleigh Day. There have been no more sightings of the woman, the man, the car nor the box. 

*

  
“Guess what time it is?” Neil hedged. 

“Theory time.” Andrew leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. “If you have some crack-shot theory about aliens, I’m fucking booking it.”

Neil grinned. “Wrong season, but you can never be sure.” 

“I hate you.” Andrew muttered. “Fine. Let’s get on with it.”

*

Theory 1: 

Kayleigh Day was murdered on the 21st of July, 1993. There are only two main suspects for her murder, though the cab driver was surprisingly a common suspect when the case was in its prime. He was discredited because of the timeline, of which is narrow and rather specific and he was excluded from being an accomplice due to prior passengers. That being said, this first suspect is also complete bullshit and absolutely terrible detective work from the police of the area, but we’ll cover him anyway. 

*

“You know there’s a really simple way of remaining objective when covering cases.” Andrew warned. “Keeping your attitude and shitty opinions out of it.”

“Can’t help it.” Neil shrugged. “This was completely ridiculous.”

*

David Wymack had arrived in New York City on the 21st of July to meet with his sister, Betsy Dobson, later in the afternoon. 

Two weeks later, when it has become public knowledge that Kayleigh Day was missing, Wymack was alerted that he had a son from his brief relationship with Kayleigh a year prior when he went backpacking through northern Europe. Kevin Day was flown over to North America, where Wymack took him back down to South Caroline. 

Two weeks after returning to South Carolina with Kevin—a month after Kayleigh’s disappearance—Wymack was arrested for the suspected kidnapping and murder of Kayleigh, his ex-partner.

The damning evidence against Wymack was an anonymous tip that the man had the box Kayleigh had left with the cab driver on Staten island. Police arrived and searched for the missing item but found nothing. Despite this, Wymack was arrested, based on the anonymous tip and the fact that Wymack was in NYC on the same day as Kayleigh. His alleged motivation was retribution for Kayleigh not telling him about Kevin. 

Kevin was moved up to New York City to be cared for my his god-father Tetsuji Moriyama, another ex-partner of Kayleigh Day. Without money for bail, Kevin remains under Moriyama’s care until Wymack is finally released. Wymack sues the NYPD for unjust imprisonment and wins the case, which slows the investigation in Kayleigh Day’s absence. 

This leads into the second suspect for Kayleigh Day’s murder is Tetsuji Moriyama. Tetsuji resided in New York City at the time of Kayleigh’s absence. The two had dated when they’d both lived in Japan a few years prior, and Kayleigh had heralded Tetsuji as Kevin’s guardian due to their close friendship that continued past their relationship. 

The motivation for Tetsuji’s murder of Kayleigh Day was made abundantly clear when Kayleigh Day’s will dictated that Kevin was the heir to all her assets, of which were passed on from her wealthy parents, whilst nothing went to her closest friend. 

It was assumed that Tetsuji’s relations, being of the Moriyama family, helped the capture and subsequent murder of Kayleigh Day. The anonymous tip would then have framed Wymack, placing him in jail for the murder and leaving Kevin to Tetsuji’s care. This would have provided Tetsuji a much more successful chance at accessing Kayleigh inheritance. 

Tetsuji was often accused of the murder, but was never actually arrested due to a lack of tangible proof. It is often proposed that this was covered up by Tetsuji’s family.

*

“Of whom we cannot talk about unless we want to get shanked.” Andrew reminded him. 

“We’ll do a whole episode on the Moriyamas.” Neil promised, much to Andrew’s chagrin.

“Death wish.” The man muttered, leaning back in his chair again. 

*

  
Theory 2: Kayleigh Day faked her death or ran away to escape debts. 

The Moriyama family are heavily intertwined in this case. Some have proposed that Tetsuji and/or Wymack helped Kayleigh fabricate her death to escape debts or hide whatever was in the box that she tasked the cab driver to destroy. Some sightings report Kayleigh-esque woman in south-south-east Asia. 

*

“That could have been her initial plan.” Andrew pointed out. “Before being intercepted.”

“Probably was.”

“Dick move, being alive and never coming back.”

“Oh,” Neil said, momentarily aloof. “There’s always good reason to never look back.”

*

Finally, theory 3: Kayleigh ran from her parents because of her pregnancy with Kevin. 

She hid away from public eye, claiming she was ill, for the entirety of her pregnancy. Some theorise she vanished and left Kevin behind to recover from the guilt she experienced at disappointing her parents for having a child with a random American traveller out of wedlock, as a heiress to a considerable inheritance and various businesses and assets. 

*

“Some have even suggested that Kayleigh died duet complications during the birth, and her parents set up an intricate disappearance with a look-alike to attempt to conceal Kevin’s existence. Didn’t work, did it?” Neil rested his chin on his hand, chancing a look across to Kevin. 

“That’d be ridiculous. You can’t just hide kids away like pennies in pockets.” Andrew muttered. 

“It’s just a theory.” Neil shrugged. “All of them are, really. Though I know which one I’m betting on it.”

“For the sakes of our legal correspondent, keep your trap shut, Josten.”

Neil grinned, shrugging with absolutely no hint of an apology in his eyes. “I suppose that’ll make sure this case always remains…_unsolved_.”

Andrew merely rolled his eyes. 

*

**Author's Note:**

> this was FUNNNNN


End file.
